SAN FRANCISCO  The Golden Gate Bridge's stylish beauty masks a darker trait: the world's most famous suicide venue. More than 1,300 troubled souls have jumped to their deaths since the towering Art Deco span opened in 1937.

The bridge and its setting in San Francisco Bay, are a lure to the despondent.

By Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

But none of those 4-second plunges was filmed as far as anyone knows until Eric Steel set up two cameras overlooking the bridge in January 2004.

A National Park Service permit in hand, Steel shot from dawn to dusk every day, capturing a year's worth of suicides and failed tries. He interviewed victims' families for what he said would be a documentary but didn't tell them he had images of loved ones' final acts.

The disclosure this month of Steel's project stunned park and bridge officials. Mary Currie, spokeswoman for the agency that runs the bridge, has accused Steel of misrepresenting himself. The project also has sparked a debate over whether the film, if it is shown, will trigger copycats and whether, after years of study and opposition, it's time to erect a suicide barrier on the bridge.

"It's an ongoing crisis," says Mel Blaustein, psychiatry director at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital here and head of a task force, not yet endorsed by bridge officials, to design a barrier. "Regrettably, people seem more concerned about things like bike paths on the bridge than preventing suicides."

There's little doubt that the bridge and its setting in San Francisco Bay, between the city skyline and the rugged Marin Headlands, are a lure to the despondent. "It's aesthetic, it's beautiful, it's quick, like having a loaded gun at your side," Blaustein says.

Access is key. Anyone can walk or ride a bike onto the bridge. The only obstacle between a jumper and a 220-foot, 75-mph plummet is a 4-foot rail. By some estimates, the nearby Bay Bridge has had only one-fifth as many suicides because pedestrians and bikers can't get on it.

Steel's filming has focused attention on other suicide magnets such as the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building, where suicides are rare since barriers went up years ago. North America's No. 2 suicide draw, Toronto's Prince Edward Viaduct, built a multimillion-dollar barrier in 2003 after more than 400 suicides.

In a 2003 letter to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Steel wrote that he would film "the powerful, spectacular intersection of monument and nature" as the first in a series of monument documentaries. The agency can do little now to stop him because of free-speech protections, spokesman Rich Weideman says.

Steel, an independent producer, declines to answer criticism that he misled families and the park service, which owns most of the land around the bridge. He's still trying to interview angry bridge officials.

"This is a personal thing, and for him to chronicle that is against anything I believe," says David Barnard, a Prescott, Ariz., retiree whose son, Michael, 40, jumped from the bridge on Nov. 11. "We haven't seen how the documentary will come out, but my initial impression is: It stinks." Barnard says Steel never contacted him.

After Rachael Marker's daughter, Elizabeth, 44, jumped on April 11, Steel interviewed Marker at her home in Healdsburg, Calif. He didn't tell her about the bridge filming. "It was very much a surprise, but I'd hate to see him crucified for this," she says. "I found him to be a very nice guy. It was good to talk to somebody about it."

Marker's son, Lyle Smith, a San Jose financial manager, thinks Steel kept the filming secret so his permit wouldn't be yanked. "For me, the film's only value would be to make sure she was alone, that no one encouraged her," Smith says.

Psychiatrists are split over whether publicity about bridge suicides encourages others. Suicide by jumping is rare, perhaps 5%, compared with 60% by gunshot. And the decision to jump is impulsive, sometimes made in seconds.

Plenty of evidence argues for barriers, Blaustein and others say. Some of the two dozen or so who have survived jumps, usually by landing feet first, later said they regretted their decision as soon as they stepped off the bridge. A study of 515 people restrained from jumping by Golden Gate Bridge police or bystanders found that 94% were still alive many years after their only suicide attempt.

But Victor Reus, a psychiatry professor at the University of California-San Francisco, says foiled would-be jumpers, "people who go out, stand around, look around and are picked up on cameras," are a different breed from the truly serious.

"It's a feel-good thing to create a barrier and think it will save lives, but data to validate that hypothesis doesn't exist," Reus says. At least 19 suicides took place on the Golden Gate Bridge last year, while 50 were deterred. Bike patrols were added and emergency phones installed in the 1990s.

The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District has studied barriers since the 1970s and tested a design in 1997 that proved ineffective and unattractive. District criteria say a barrier can't add too much weight, affect wind stability or be too costly.

But Blaustein and those who criticize indecision over a barrier say publicity about Golden Gate Bridge suicides will keep feeding the death toll. A 2001 review in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences of dozens of studies on suicide and the media found "overwhelming evidence" of higher suicide rates after prominent news accounts.

A carnival mood preceded the 500th suicide, in 1973, as newspapers ran countdowns, TV crews staked out the bridge and bars took bets. As the 1,000th neared in 1995, a disc jockey offered a case of Snapple to the victim's family, but the California Highway Patrol stopped counting at 997.

Currie expects the bridge board to soon consider a barrier again. The true number of suicides is thought to be closer to 2,000 than 1,300 because many bodies aren't recovered from the deep, turbulent waters around the bay.

In a letter to bridge officials, Steel said he filmed "most of the two dozen or so" suicides that occurred. One likely was that of David Paige, 49, who jumped April 28. Steel talked to his family, including a cousin, Diane Pfoertner of Ortonville, Mich., who says she has no problem with Steel's documentary. "I felt that if somewhere down the line it would do somebody some good, it was worth putting some energy into," Pfoertner says.